Bleak winters.

Bleak winters.

“In the lives of those who believe and pray, there are bleak winters of the spirit. We seem to go along well for a while in prayer and relationships and life generally, but from time to time we disintegrate. It is very painful. You may suspect that this will prove to be a creative disintegration, that God is re-creating you, putting you together in the likeness of his Son at a new and deeper level. Certainly this does happen: growth is not easy; there is a probably distressing period for the caterpillar on the way to butterflyhood. We are all participants in this experience from time to time, and a chrysalis needs sympathetic understanding, so we should be gentle and patient with ourselves, as with others. Nevertheless, they are hard to live through, these winters of the spirit. When you know yourself to be sterile, helpless, unable to deal creatively with your situation or change your own heart, you know your need for a Savior, and you know what Advent is. God brings us to these winters, these dreary times of deadness and emptiness of spirit, as truly as he brings winter after autumn, as a necessary step towards next spring. But while we are in them they feel like a real absence of God, or our absence from him. . . . .In the winters of your prayer, when there seems to be nothing but darkness and a situation of frozenness, hold on, wait for God. He will come.” (Maria Boulding)

I hope this provides encouragement for you. Know that I’m praying for you . . . all of you who “know what Advent is.”

You would think they would get easier with experience – when you can look back and recognize that you’ve been here before and you know God brought you through and will again — but somehow, it doesn’t seem to help. It STILL seems like it always has beena nd always will be…Thank you for the timely perspective.:-)

Welcome to Witnesses to Hope!

"Bring your lamp to those without light, enkindle the flame of love in those without hope." (Tagore) ~from a holy card I picked up in Rome in 2005 . . .
I began this blog as a place to share some of the things that have increased my hope during challenging times--with the hope that it may do the same for others as well. I welcome your comments.

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